All That Glitters
by Darkmoon99
Summary: Serious AU. Rated M for sex, violence, and language, and maybe some nudity, so 18 only. Bella Swan has left Forks behind and become a vampire hunter in Seattle in the year 2072. Heavy cross with ShadowRun. This is a redux from Bella Swan: Vampire Hunter. Bella/Jacob (maybe); Bella/?


**A/N: I do not own Twilight or ShadowRun, I am only using them for my own twisted purposes. This is a rewrite of Bella Swan: Vampire Hunter for those of you who are curious, thought I would add in some more details, etc. Yes, there will be violence, probably sex, more violence... Did I say there would be violence? And adult language, maybe some nudity. I'm still figuring that out.**

**Anyways, please read and review. I'm hoping that ya'll will like it, but if you don't, or if I don't know people like it, then it's kind of hard to keep writing this. No, this is not Beta'd, but if you are interested in the job, please let me know. I am open to suggestions, criticisms, etc, but do me a favor and tell my why you don't like it if that is the case. Same goes the other way.**

**Alright, so enjoy...**

Seattle, Salish-Shidhe Council Lands

The Redmond Barrens

August 17th, 2072

It was raining again. It wasn't a hard rain, more of a mist that seemed to settle like a halo around everything in sight; this included buildings, cars, humans and meta-humans. The sun was just beginning to set over the distant Puget Sound throwing an orange glow through the smog and mist shrouded sky, adding a sickly tint to the air. The Barrens stretched for as far as the eye could see, older, run-down buildings, shabbily dressed, huddled people who scuttled about their business without looking around. This was done for safety; if you didn't see anything then the Star or the Corporate Security couldn't force you to testify against anything that might have happened. The only people who seemed to keep their heads up and their eyes opened were the gang members, young toughs sporting distinctive colors or dress styles.

There was a third type of person in the Barrens, though, one who didn't fit into either group. Standing on a street corner somewhere near the infamous Squatter Mall of Redmond was one of them. She was a young woman wearing a long, heavy coat that hung around her, hiding her body from wandering eyes or the intrusive sweeps of the LoneStar drones. More importantly, it hid the tools of her trade from said prying eyes, leaving her as an unknown threat in the eyes of the gangers. The girl was as nondescript as anybody could be in this part of the MetroPlex, with her black long coat, dark clothes and a battered fedora topping her head with the mass of her brown hair stuffed up under. She wore a pair of dark sunglasses despite the closing gloom of the evening, hiding her brown eyes behind the heavily tinted lenses. She seemed to be casually leaning against a building, watching the people and vehicles pass by, but she barely registered them, her eyes locked on a nondescript building across the street. The smart glasses she wore tracked the passing of people, cars, and the large number of motorcycles. It was going to be a little bit until the sun went completely down, until it became dark enough for her prey to become active. A smile tugged at her lips as she considered that fact in relation to the information she had gotten a few days ago.

Seattle, Salish-Shidhe Council Lands

Port of Tacoma

August 14th, 2072

The shop was called _Gloria's Scales and Things_, it was a low rent building near the Port of Tacoma with a brick façade that had taken on the same faded gray color as the as the sky, tarnished by the decades of oil and coal smoke that had permeated the air. The front window was covered in layers of oily grime and grit, barely allowing anyone to see through to the inside. The AR for the shop declared that the shop sold telesima, minor magical ingredients used by shamans and mages for researching and casting spells.

This wasn't Bella's favorite talismonger shop in the Plex, but the owner, Emily Young, had the penchant of keeping the real telesima off the shelves and in the back of the store. The store gave the look of disorganization as she walked in, vials and jars lining shelves along the walls with display cases and baskets of herbs crowded about. Most of what was on the shelves was low level, esoteric items that the mundane people, the people who maybe knew about magic, but had no magical talent of their own, would buy to impress their friends. Bella made her way through the shop, stopping to look at various items.

"Well, Bella Swan. You do still exist," a deep voice called from the back of the store. Bella's head snapped up and her brown eyes widened at the figure standing behind the counter. He was tall, well over 2 meters tall, savagely handsome, and a body that could have been the model for Adonis. He wore an open flannel shirt over his bare chest and loose denim pants, and if memory served Bella correctly, he would be barefoot.

"Jake? Jacob Black?" Bella said, unable to keep a slight smile from her lips. She had known Jacob from before, he had been her best friend until she had gone to live with her mother in Scottsdale, NAN.

"Alive and in the flesh," he replied walking around the counter and confirming that he was barefoot. He scooped her up into a bear hug that would have crushed the slight mage if he wasn't so aware of his strength.

"What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since…" she couldn't force herself to finish the statement, but that was something for another time.

"Yeah, you kind of pulled away from everyone," Jake replied as he set her back on her feet. "Guess you never heard about Sam and Emily hooking up. A couple of us come up and help out in the shop when we're not busy elsewhere."

"I thought Sam and Leah were together," Bella said.

"They were. It's kind of hard to explain."

"Let me guess, it's a wolf thing?" The look of surprise on Jake's face was priceless, and for a heartbeat, Bella wished she could have caught it on vid, but she knew that it was a very dangerous thing to say. To anyone else, it would have been fatal. "I'm a mystic adept, Jake. It's written all over your aura."

"When did you awaken?"

"The night… the night Edward attacked me," there, she had said it. She felt a lance pain pass through her chest as the memories rushed up, and she forced herself to breath past the sudden constriction of her throat. It was a sort of lie of omission on her part. Edward had attacked her before. Attack didn't even begin to cover what he had done to her then, but rape was too harsh of a word for her to contemplate at the moment. It had all started when she began school at Forks High School. "My parents had me tested when I was young, you know, like most corporate families do, and I guess I was latent until then." Jacob nodded solemnly, not wanting to dismiss the obvious pain Bella felt with a flippant comment, but also not wanting to let the moment linger.

"Well I had heard of Bella the Vampire Slayer, but I didn't realize it was you. I was expecting someone bigger, you know, troll-like." The moment was broken, the sense of oppression that had settled across them gone, and Bella looked shocked for a moment before they both started laughing.

"I can't believe you just said that," she said after a few moments. "Troll-like? I'll have you know that I have a very good record of destroying vamp covens and their lairs."

"I bet you do. You do, after all, present a very small target for them to deal with," Jacob replied with a grin. Bella snorted, shaking her head.

"Is Emily around? She asked me to drop by and see her," she said as she glanced around the shop.

"Ah, so we get to the point of the matter," Jacob said. "I was beginning to wonder if this was business or personal. She's in back." He jerked his thumb to the door that led to the back room of the shop. Bella nodded and headed for it, stopping to look at Jacob.

"I missed you, you know," she said finally.

"I miss you, too," he replied. "Maybe… Maybe we can go and get a drink sometime, catch up or something." Bella was quiet for a long moment, looking at Jacob and remembering the good times they had when they were kids. Best friends, inseparable, and then _HE_ had come between all of that, had destroyed her trust, her ability to deal with people in general.

"I'd like that, Jake," she said quietly, her lips quirking into a slight smile.

The back room of the shop wasn't much to look at. There was a small desk crammed into a corner with shelves surrounding it filled with massed produced junk talismans. But this was just the public back room, the one that someone would see if they ever had cause to look beyond the façade of the storefront. Moving past the shelves Bella pushed aside a beaded curtain that would normally appear as just another section of wall. The fact that it was deactivated meant that Emily was expecting company, and that, more than likely, the company was already there.

Emily was sitting at a small round table across from an orc woman, cups of soycaf sitting untouched on the table between them. Emily still looked as beautiful as ever, her dark hair braided down her back. Her face was turned away from Bella, hiding the scarred side that Bella knew was there, five deep, puckered scars that, on anyone else, would have rendered them hideous. Emily, though, managed to carry the scars with the stoic resolve of her heritage that somehow made them a part of her AmerInd beauty. The orc sitting across from her was not nearly so attractive, though she was pretty enough for an orc. Broad shouldered, tanned skin, dark red hair and green eyes tucked under the feral brow that marked the orcish race. Her bottom tusks were understated in a way that almost made her look human. She was dressed in clean but well used clothes with stains at the elbows and knees. The hem of her skirt was frayed, though otherwise well mended. This was a woman who took care to present herself well despite the lack of Nuyen to buy better clothes. Emily responded to Bella's presence first, turning and smiling at the diminutive mage.

"Bella," she said as she stood and walked over. "I'm so glad you could make it."

"I knew you wouldn't have asked if it wasn't important, Emily," Bella replied, hugging her friend briefly before turning her attention to the orc. "And might I ask who your friend is?"

"You may call me Mrs. Johnson," the women replied in a surprisingly well educated voice, not the expected surly, clipped English that was spoken by most orcs.

"Mrs. Johnson," Bella murmured.

"I will let you talk," Emily said as she stepped to the side. "Bella, please listen to her. The Star won't, and I really think she needs help." Bella looked the woman over again for a long moment before nodding.

"Like I said, you wouldn't have called me if it wasn't important," she replied, patting Emily on the arm lightly and walking over to the table. She sat down opposite the orc, waiting until Emily had stepped out. Talismonger she might be, fixer and broker she wasn't.

"Thank you for meeting with me," Mrs. Johnson said slowly. Deep inside Bella wanted to snort, but she kept it to herself. The name Johnson had become synonymous with Smith or Jones and was a nom de plume adopted by corporate officers when dealing with deniable asset teams. This woman was so far from being corporate it wasn't funny.

"I trust Emily. So tell me what I can do to help you."

"It started a few months ago. I work for a school in Redmond, near the Squatters Mall. We are not an official school, but we try to take the kids in off the street and teach them, offer them some sort of education," she said. Bella could read the concern and pain in her eyes, as well as her aura. This woman may not be corporate, and she sure as drek wasn't using her real name, but she was honestly concerned about something. "We have kids ranging from 5 to 15 in the school, though most only stay for a few months at a time before they get picked off by gangs, or worse. Lately it has been the worse that is causing concern."

"Explain."

"It started with a boy who started manifesting some thaumateurgical aptitude. One of the teachers is a shaman, and took the boy in under his wing. Everything seemed fine, the boy was eager to learn everything that we could teach him, no matter if it dealt with magic or mundane. Then one day he suddenly seemed to lose interest."

"Sounds like your typical kid," Bella replied, though she kept her skepticism to herself.

"That's what I thought at first. He stopped showing interest in learning, and then he just stopped showing up one day. That happens so often that at first we didn't notice, not until his older brother started asking questions. Then there were other kids who started showing… behavioral problems."

"What sort of problems?"

"Lack of socialization, lack of interest in the school work. A couple of them started spending time gluing glitter to their hands. All of the kids were showing signs of some kind of illness, as well. They were paler than they should have been, not necessarily lethargic, but definitely not interested in the things that were going on around them." Bella felt her blood chill at the mention of the glitter, and she had to fight off the urge to shudder.

"Have any of them shown any strange markings or injuries?" Bella asked, her hand instinctively dropping to her lap, her fingertips tracing over her inner thigh where, unseen through the clothes, a pair of round scars lay.

"Not that any of us had noticed, but the shaman said that their aura's had changed, that there was something wrong with them."

Dark memories stormed through Bella's mind, threatening to overwhelm her, but she fought them back. Years of training had helped her to isolate herself in times of emotional trauma, a necessary skill when dealing with the violence that metahumanity visited upon their own. The most prominent image that filled her mind was the golden eyes staring at her through the darkness, cold hands pressing her thighs apart, ginger hair obscuring her groin as the beast duck his head and bit into her thigh, fangs piercing her flesh, and she screamed. In her memory. In reality, she was quiet.

"You… you know something about this?" the woman asked, a hopeful edge to her voice. Bella nodded slowly, sweeping the nightmares away into the darkness of her mind where they belonged.

"I do," she said quietly. "I know quite a bit."

"I know this sort of thing usually requires payment, but I do not have much, neither do the others. Any extra money we have goes into providing for the children."

"Don't worry about that," Bella replied, a small smile curving her lips. "If this is what I think it is, that will be payment enough. Just take care of those children. Someone needs to." The woman nodded, a sort of relieved smile crossing her lips as Bella stood up. "I will take care of this."

Bella walked out of the back of the shop, her mind still reeling. It was the glitter. She could never forget that damned ginger bastard and his glitter. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a large hand settled on her shoulder and she found herself turning towards Jacob, her hand sliding for one of her knives.

"Whoa, Bella, slow down," Jacob said, removing his hand and holding them up in a placating manner.

"Sorry, I… uh… I forgot you were here," Bella said as a sheepish blush crept up her face. "Hey, you still want to get that drink?"


End file.
